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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the 2004 Nintendo GameCube sequel to the original Paper Mario and the second game in the Paper Mario series. It starts like a lot of Mario games, with a letter from Princess Peach. She wants Mario to meet her at a distant town called Rogueport, to help her search for a legendary treasure indicated by the map she sent along with the letter. By the time Mario actually pulls into port, Peach is gone, and for once it's not Bowser who kidnapped her (and he's very, very peeved about that).

The mysterious secret society of X-Nauts and their leader, Sir Grodus, are the ones responsible this time. They're after the same treasure as Mario, and are hanging onto Peach for an unknown purpose related to this treasure hunt. Mario learns from the Goomba Professor Frankly and his young assistant Goombella that said treasure is locked behind the eponymous Thousand-Year Door beneath town, and that opening the massive door involves collecting the Crystal Stars scattered across the surrounding regions. As the game goes on, the nature of the treasure and why the X-Nauts are holding Peach comes to light, and let's just say said treasure is not a pile of gold coins.

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The game retains the same paper aesthetic, Turn-Based Combat, Action Commands, and Better Than a Bare Bulb humor of the previous game, with some extra tweaks introduced. Action Commands are also needed for the Limit Break moves that are attained with each Crystal Star. The previous game's damage-reducing button presses during enemy attacks are supplemented by a Blocking Stops All Damage mechanic with a narrower window of accuracy. Each battle is fought in front of an audience that must be pleased by a good performance in order to increase the amount of Star Power recovered per turn. Your partners now have a health meter, and can be incapacitated if they run out (though the battle will still go on as long as Mario is alive). World exploration is aided by Mario gaining several paper-themed transformations like a paper airplane and a paper boat.

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Lastly, this is the game that introduced the Cerebus Syndrome that the Paper Mario sub-series became famous for. Not only is the Evil Plan of the X-Nauts surprisingly dark for a Super Mario Bros. game, but the individual Chapters often have their own self-contained sinister elements. While later Mario games such as Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon would also explore the Mario-verse from a more menacing angle, The Thousand-Year Door was the very first to delve into darker material than what is typical for the franchise.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Rogueport Sewers is very intricate with spacious rooms, several levels, and even has intact buildings that a few NPCs live in. Justified because it used to be a prospering town in ancient times that the modern town was built on top of.

Accidental Misnaming: Mario is referred to by various NPCs as Murphy, Marty-o, Gonzales (though this one is justified as it was his stage name in chapter 3 and it's generally what the people who call him that know him from), and Luigi (said with green text), among other names.

Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: Mario says hello with a salute that looks a little bit too much like he's actually trying to heil Hitler. Due to the resemblance, the gesture was removed in all European versions of the game.

Action Commands: Every attack has at least one button you need to press or a control stick input to maximize damage. Pulling off certain hidden commands will even refill your star power meter.

Air-Vent Passageway: The Glitz Pit has a very large air vent connecting the Champion's quarters with the main office. Once Mario becomes champion, it's used to eavesdrop on Arc VillainGrubba.

Almost Dead Guy: TEC. When you get to him as Mario, he is able to summon enough of his reserves to get Mario to safety, just before the moon base self-destructs.

Always Night: Played with in Twilight Town. Just as its name indicates, it's never totally "night" per se, nor is it ever day; it's always twilight. However, it gets increasingly darker as you draw closer to Creepy Steeple.

And I Must Scream: Played for laughs with the black chest spirits that "curse" you.Those are the four heroes that sealed away the Shadow Queen, but she laid a curse on them beforehand to trap them.

And the Adventure Continues: Both in Gameplay and Story: Gameplay wise, you do stuff in Rogueport after the final battle. Story wise, it ends with Peach coming to Mario's house and saying she's found a new treasure map in the castle and is waiting for Mario on the boat. The look on Mario's face and the music just fit at that moment of the utter surprise/despair of having to go on another adventure so soon.

At one pivotal point in the Final Boss fight, the game rigs the slot machine to give you a much-needed Shine Sprite Bingo, which restores everything.

If you miss the tattle for any enemy there is a limited number of (such as bosses or mini-bosses), the tattle log entry will appear in Professor Frankly's wastebasket, meaning you can't accidentally lock yourself out of 100% Completion.

Anti-Grinding: Leveling up will decrease the amount of experience enemies drop, eventually going down to yielding one point per encounter.

Ant War: The Punis aren't exactly insects, but their war with the "rival tribe" of mosquito like Jabbies plays out as this trope.

Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Matches in the Glitz Pit require that the player meet certain conditions in order to advance, rather than just defeat the enemy. These include things like "Appeal three times," "Don't attack for three rounds" or "Only let your partner attack." One of the NPC opponents also gets a condition: "Do a triple flip and meow."

Arc Villain: A few chapters have villains who are threats in their own right but are unconnected to Grodus' plans, with the notable exception being Lord Crump.

Chapter 1 has Hooktail, a dragon who eats Koopa Troopas. It's later revealed that she has brothers who are connected to the main plot, but she herself seems divorced from it.

Chapter 3 has Grubba. He's simply using the Crystal Star to further his youth. He actually has no relation to the main plot outside the chapter and doesn't appear again after being defeated, being replaced with Jolene who takes over the Glitz Pit.

Chapter 4 has Doopliss, who curses the people of Twilight Town to become pigs and steals Mario's name and body. Although he later becomes connected to the main plot when he joins the Shadow Sirens.

Chapter 5 has Cortez, who was a pirate captain when he was still alive and guards his treasure and island even in death. Unlike the other examples, Cortez actually does a HeelFace Turn and helps Mario defeat Lord Crump, who had disguised himself as a sailor.

Artifact Mook: Goombas are encountered during Chapter 6 in Riverside Station, despite the fact that they are far too weak to pose a threat by that point. The same applies to the regular X-Nauts in the X-Naut Fortress.

Audience Participation: In-Universe. All battles take place on a stage, with certain factors causing audience members to come in and leave, cheer on the player (which gives them Star Power to recharge special moves; Mario can even show off to the crowd to gain even more Star Power) or even throw things at the player to help or hinder them. Some enemies will even attack the audience (such as Magnus von Grapple's machine gun that fires audience members).

Autobots, Rock Out!: The fight music for Chapter 3's miniboss, Rawk Hawk, is made of this. Listen to it here. (The other battles in the Glitz Pit have the standard battle music.)

Chapter 7 is the worst offender. To reach the moon, you have to find General White. The catch? He goes all over the world and leads you on a wild goose chase until you reach his hut again.

Badass Mustache: Mario, Luigi, and Bobbery's mustaches are badass, as numerous characters point out during the game. General White fits this too; Goombella even states his mustache gives Mario's some competition. Also, Merlon with his gigantic 'stache that goes down below his waist; it eventually grows down to his feet in his Super Paper Mario appearance.

The boss of Chapter 3, Grubba compliments Mario amid his trash-talking and seems to genuinely appreciate "The Great Gonzales", even in his battle where he turns into Macho Grubba, he still compliments Mario for his showmanship and fighting abilities.

In Chapter 6, the snooty Bob-omb couple can be seen arguing about what to get their son Bub for his birthday. If you talk to him, he says that he only wants a signature from someone on the train that he looks up to. Given that Zip Toad, a celebrity (which later turns out to be Doopliss in disguise), is also on the train, most players would go to him first - except he will not sign autographs to anyone who is not a hot girl (and bringing out your female partners will not get you anything, not even a comment). However, by poking around on the train some more, you'll eventually discover that Bub actually wanted the train conductor's signature, because he looks up to his career of working on a train.

Also seen in Chapter 3; Jolene shows the player the Champion's Room and the Major League Room, before bringing them to a run-down minor league room. Goombella even comments on this, should you use the tattle in the room.

Bandit Mook: In addition to the Bandits that can steal Mario's coins, there's also ones that can steal his items and his badges, although the Badge Bandits are exclusive to the Pit of 100 Trials. They also appear as non-hostile NPCs.

Batman Can Breathe in Space: Mario and his partner can wander on the surface of the Moon without any problem, despite being free of any oxygen tanks and helmets.

Beef Gate: Gus, though he can be bribed as opposed to beaten up. You, with good timing, can have him be the very first enemy you beat in the game with perfect countering, meaning you won't take damage. It should be noted bribing only works until you come back, beating him up puts him out of the way for the rest of the game.

Implying (intentionally or unintentionally) that Rawk Hawk is weak is a bad move, as he'll either go to great lengths, even cheat, to prevent the accuser from commenting on it as a means of exacting revenge on the accuser, or directly attack the accuser (although the latter did not end so well for him as the person who accused him, Bowser, was more than entitled and justified for saying that).

Beware the Nice Ones: Lucky gets really angry with cheaters. If you confess to cheating, save the game, cheat again, and confess again, Lucky will actually end the game. Well, not really, but he'll sap 500 of your coins as punishment.

Big Bad: Sir Grodus, until it's revealed that he was Beldam's pawn the whole time. The game does a really good job setting up Grodus as the Big Bad, to the point where he's fought after Beldam, though the reveal invalidates all of it.

Big Ball of Violence: The opening has Mario and Goombella escaping one involving Lord Crump and an army of X-Nauts. By the time Crump realizes what happened, they're long gone.

Big Boo's Haunt: The Creepy Steeple is a (mostly) abandoned steeple found in the middle of the woods near Twilight Town. It's home of the Duplighost named Doopliss and houses spooky enemies like Boos.

Big, Bulky Bomb: The Bulky Bob-ombs and their Pit of 100 Trials equivalent Bob-ulks, which are naturally much more dangerous than their normal Bob-omb counterparts. Notably their explosions are among the few things that cannot be super guarded, making the Bob-ulk's explosion all the more dangerous.

Big Eater: Heff. T; he steals Chef Shimi's soup on the Excess Express and ends up not being able to leave because he can't fit through the door. He then lives on room service.

Big Ol' Eyebrows: Just look◊ at Mayor Kroop. They're a minor Running Gag, too: he mistakes something Mario says for complimenting his eyebrows, and mentions that his wife used to comb his eyebrows before she passed on. Mayor Dour also has some massive 'brows.

Bite the Wax Tadpole: Doopliss' name can either make Polish gamers giggle or disgust them, as this word sounds like "Dupoliz", which in Polish language literally means "Ass-licker".

Blaming the Railroaded Player Character: A minor example has Zess T. tell you to stop moving because she lost a contact lens. Stand still as long as you want; she'll never find it. Move at all, in any direction, even slightly, and it will crunch under your boot (or hammer, if you chose to swing that.) There simply is no way to avoid smashing the darned thing. Even after you replace it, Zess T. will call you by insulting nicknames for the rest of the game.

Blatant Lies: Once Hooktail's HP is depleted, she will offer Mario 3 separate bribes so he won't kill her. While the first two are something a dragon might reasonably have (1,000 coins and a rare badge), the last one is the offer to sniff her feet. She claims that people pay money to do this, and that she's being completely honest about it.

"Blind Idiot" Translation: Sky-Blue Spinies that have curled up into balls are referred to by the game as "Sky-Blue Pipes". Paipo is the Japanese name for Spiny Eggs, which may be where the confusion came from.

Blocking Stops All Damage: You can Super Guard against pretty much anything that causes damage in battle, regardless of whether that means physical attacks, projectiles, lightning strikes, falling walls, fire or explosions, all with no harm done to Mario. The catch is that the timing for the Super Guard is extremely strict, and failing the timing means you take full damage, so it's all or nothing.

The Atomic Boo is a boss that can be fought in the Creepy Steeple after the Boos have been freed from their prison in the basement. However, actually engaging it is completely optional.

A powerful creature known as Bonetail resides at the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials. It's the strongest enemy in the game, and grants a Bragging Rights Reward upon defeat.

Bonus Dungeon: The Pit of 100 Trials, though it's a good idea to go to at least floor 50 for any playthrough, as a bigger item bag is always useful.

Book-Ends: It ends how it started, with Peach wanting to treasure hunt again.

Boss Bonanza: The Palace of Shadow contains boss fights against Gloomtail, the Shadow Sirens (and Doopliss), Grodus, Bowser and Kammy together, and The Shadow Queen. Arguably also the two battles with the Dark Bones, too, as they have HP on par with early-game bosses and are among the enemies whose Tattle entries can show up in Professor Frankly's wastebasket.

Boss Remix: Lord Crump, Sir Grodus, and Bowser all get this treatment, having remixes of their respective themes as their battle musics.

Peeka, the Boo who guards the entrance to the Pianta Syndicate headquarters, had bunny ears in the original Japanese version; essentially, she was a Boo Playboy Bunny. They were changed into cat ears in all other versions of the game; possibly just to remove a reference to an adult magazine, or perhaps to avoid legal problems, since the Playboy Bunny logo is copyrighted.

In the Japanese version, the home of the bandit that steals your coins in the prologue had a Chalk Outline of a Toad surrounded by dried blood on the floor, implying that a Toad had entered the house and suffered a terrible fate.

Mario's "hello" gesture was removed in the European localizations of the game, evidently due to an unfortunate resemblance to the infamous Nazi salute.

Breaking Out the Boss: The Shadow Sirens, led by Beldam, were responsible for the events of the whole game. Their boss, The Shadow Queen, was trapped in a tomb deep beneath Rogueport, essentially making her a Sealed Evil in a Can. Beldam spread word of a great treasure hunt and tricked Princess Peach into getting kidnapped by Grodus and the X-Nauts. Grodus himself believed he would harness the power of The Shadow Queen by using Peach as a vessel, using the Shadow Sirens as henchmen. However, Beldam was the one using him and his army for her own ends of releasing the Shadow Queen.

"You out there in front of the TV!" If Goombella is your partner when Professor Frankly says this, she'll lampshade it with "Why do we always have to break through the fourth wall?"

When asked to describe Stewart in Glitzville, Goombella will mention that Cheep-Cheeps have been around since the first Mario game, and then say "I just broke through the fourth wall there, didn't I?". If you get her to describe the gatekeeper in Twilight Town, she'll mention that the game would be too easy without him, before flustering and saying 'What? I didn't say anything!'

If you defeat Gus in Rogueport, he will exclaim, "You dumb video-game heroes ALWAYS do this!"

After Bowser goes through Rawk Hawk's secret training facility, Rawk Hawk will point at the camera and presumably ask the player if they forgot about him.

An NPC in Petalburg mentions wanting a game called "Paper Luigi". Later, he says that he's playing a new game... called Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Oh, and he also finishes it before you do. He also mentions Fire Emblem, another game by Intelligent Systems. And at the end of the game? He's playing Super Paper Mario!

When you are in the Keelhaul Key chapter, at one point, the pirate "Four-Eyes" (a.k.a. Lord Crump) looks at the TV and tells the audience not to tell Mario who he obviously is. Weirdly, if your partner is Goombella at this point she will have just broken the fourth wall in Chapter Four and then acts confused when someone else breaks the fourth wall in Chapter Five.

When Koops is reunited with his father after the first dungeon, he says "Everyone thought your game was over!" This may have been an example at the time, but it no longer remains so. In Super Paper Mario, the common term for death in-universe is Game Over.

One of the Plot Coupons is a lower-case p that you need to enter someone's name.

Broken Bridge: The first time Mario tries to move to the west part of Rogueport, he accidentally breaks Zess-T's contact lens, and she refuses to move until he gets her a replacement. Unfortunately, you have to order one from the merchant, and he won't get one until Chapter 2. This means the west part of town is inaccessible until then. After getting her a replacement, she then offers to cook item recipes for Mario.

After catching the Yoshi egg in Glitzville, Mario is given an option to, instead of free him, say "Let there be hot dogs!" Of course, picking this option will simply result in Mario's partner yelling at him and overriding his decision.

Immediately afterward, Mario is given an option to bring the egg with him or not. If he says no, his partner immediately changes his mind.

Essentially any point in the game where dialogue options seemingly give Mario a chance to refuse a possible plot-relevant action or to help someone in need. In most of these cases, his partner will either correct him or outright ignore his refusal and make the decision for him. The biggest aversion to this occurs when the Shadow Queen offers Mario a chance to be his servant. He can actually accept, which leads to a Non-Standard Game Over.

The player must open the chest in Creepy Steeple to proceed any further, as Boos will block the doorways.

A much straighter example occurs when the Pianta Syndicate goons ask Mario to find Francesca and bring her home to visit her sick-with-loneliness father. He can refuse them once, but they will ask again, with a much more threatening tone. The only options this time are "I'll do it!" and "I understand!"

The audience, whose torture ranges from being scared out of their wits and munched by Hooktail to getting dragged off to Hell by the Shadow Queen.

Doopliss, too, when he joins the Shadow Sirens—he starts taking the punishments that Vivian had been, though unlike Vivian he decides not to leave.

Poor Bowser is always at least one step behind the plot, often falls into blunders, and is the only boss in the entire game that can be shooed away with Showstopper since Mario has more important things to deal with.

Chapter 1 for both games are about getting to a fortress/castle where the Plot Coupon is held, with the help of a Koopa partner you meet in a town of Koopas on the way to said stronghold.

Chapter 4 is a call back to Chapter 3 in the first game. Both introduce the hyper enemies who can charge their attacks to deal massive damage. Both are about an unbeatable enemy with a secret that makes them beatable, and that you need the help of a partner whose ability is to make you disappear to get through it. Both also take place in a Big Boo's Haunt setting. Boos are foes in this game, though.

Chapter 5 for both games is about finding another Plot Coupon within a tropical island, though in this case Cortez later helps Mario beat the X-Naut army.

In both games, the Big Bad's base is located in the cosmos, and only reachable with the help of NPCs. In this game, though, the Big Bad's base isn't the last chapter.

The boss of Chapter 3 is a giant Clubba for both games. And both of them have a secret that you spend most of the chapter investigating. But for this game, you don't know that the Clubba in question is behind everything until the very end.

Cerebus Syndrome: Last game, Mario and company were just putting the stomp on Bowser, standard Mario heroics. For this go-round, Mario gets to prevent the end of the world.

Check-Point Starvation: The Pit Of100 Trials is the epitome of this. Depending on the player's level dungeon takes hours to complete, and you can't save your progress at all, though one can keep whatever badges they obtain and whatever star points they receive if they leave the dungeon and go save outside. Since you can't flee from the final trial, you can't even escape the pit and keep your level-ups if you can't do it. It does reward you with the most powerful badge ever if you manage to beat it though.

Chekhov's Gag: The pipe leading to Twilight Town during chapter 4 rejects Mario's entry because he has nothing on him that identifies who he is. You easily get the problem fixed by talking to a Twilight Town resident in Rogueport that writes Mario's name on his overalls. After Doopliss steals Mario's name and identity, trying to leave Twilight Town will have the pipe spit Mario back out since he doesn't have a name anymore.

Chekhov's Gunman: When you first visited the Rogueport Sewers, you notice a small creature who runs away in a hole whenever you approach him. He becomes prominent in Chapter 2 when he's revealed to be Punio, a Puni who was trying to seek help as the X-Nauts captured his home. He follows you around for that chapter.

Chick Magnet: Every female party member kisses Mario when they join, and either openly flirt or develop a crush on him. Even Beldam thinks he's handsome. They must dig the 'stache.

Chimney Entry: When Bobbery doesn't want to be disturbed and locks himself inside his home, Mario naturally has to climb up on the roof and roll up into a tube so that he fits in the chimney.

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The Mario series in general is notorious for this trope. Ever wonder what happened to The X-Nauts? The entire ensemble of party members? How about the species only seen in this game, which were introduced as "Ratooeys", "Doogans", "Punis", and "Jabbis"? What about our name-stealing friend, Doopliss? Where have they gone? Sure, some of these guys have been referred to in Super Paper Mario and the Super Smash Bros. series in trophy form, but have they ever appeared again besides this game?

The City Narrows: East Rogueport. The place is filthy, run-down, and crime-ridden, and anyone walking through there can honestly expect to get robbed or jumped.

Also the mysterious lady in the Glitzville juice stand, who is very heavily hinted to be Jolene.

Classy Cat-Burglar: Ms. Mowz. Hard to get more stylish than a fancy red mask and high heels.

Clever Crows: The crows in Twilight Town discuss such things as renewable energy sources and Internet start-up companies.

Cloudcuckoolander: All of the Koopas, with the possible exceptions of Koops and Koopie Koo. Mario also runs into a few Shiver City penguins, all of whom are just as spacy and excitable as they were in the last game. Lord Crump is another one. Grodus even comments that Crump is "out there" at one point.

Clueless Detective: Pennington, though it's revealed at the end of the chapter that he's not a real detective anyway.

Cognizant Limbs: Smorg, Cortez and the Shadow Queen have separate health-bars for their limbs. In the case of Smorg, it's necessary to "kill" it's arms in order to do any damage to the main part of the monster.

Collection Sidequest: The Star Pieces. Hidden here and there throughout the game, they can be collected and traded for awesome badges. Shine Sprites too, which can be traded in 3 at a time to power-up Mario's companions.

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Shadow Sirens' hats are indicative of their elemental powers. Vivian's is red (fire), Beldam's is blue (ice), and Marilyn's is yellow (lightning).

Color-Coded Stones: The Crystal Stars which must be collected throughout this game are colored as such. The Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire and Garnet stars are white, green, red, blue and reddish-orange, respectively. Another star is palette swapped for gold and referred to as the "Gold Star", despite it being obvious that the star is a crystal not a metal. Perhaps a slight inversion as the last star is an iridescent white, yet it is the "Crystal Star" not diamond.

Combined Energy Attack: Used against the final boss; the prayers of all of Mario's friends from around the world weaken the Shadow Queen, allowing Mario to finish her off.

The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: The instructions for the special skill "Sweet Feast" read "Hold [analog stick/trigger] left to try to hit hearts and flowers". This video proves that how you make this skill work best is to mash the analog stick instead, allowing Mario to fire faster.

At the beginning of the game, Parakarry from Paper Mario 64 game delivers a letter to the Mario Bros. In the post-game, you can meet another of your party members from Paper Mario 64, Bow. There would've been more than just the two, but they were Dummied Out. Jr. Troopa can also be seen in the background of a picture attached to e-mail sent to Mario by Zip Toad. Also, in Hooktail's castle, the note written by a dead Koopa is addressed to his son Kolorado, an NPC in the first game.

A Hammer Bro in the Glitz Pit mentions his grandfather (who he inherited his hammer from) being from World 7-1.

In Keelhaul Key, Bobbery asks you to get him Chuckola Colanote Translation-only, as whereas the original was always just that, this was originally a type of wine called Vintage Red. he was saving for arrival at the island. This is a reference to the soda of the same name from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

Could Say It, But...: TEC is forbidden from telling Princess Peach anything about Grodus's plans. He gets around the restriction by giving Peach a multiple-choice quiz...with critical information as the correct answers.

Cowardly Lion: Koops, who suffers from a lack of confidence in the beginning of the game, but proves a valuable partner.

Credits Montage: A recap of what has happened to your allies plays during the credits.

Crippling Overspecialization: Somewhat literally played with the Hammerman and Jumpman badges—each grants 1 extra damage for either Hammer or Jump attacks in exchange for being incapable of using the other. Their low BP cost (2, compared to 6 for a Power Plus) makes them attractive for boosting some builds, and they are really useful in those Glitz Pit fights where you're asked to not use one or the other type of weapon.

Crippling the Competition: During Chapter 3 (the Boxing Episode of the game), at one point someone sends you a poisoned cake just before you start a fight. If you fall for the Schmuck Bait, you're forced to fight the next battle alone, without any of your partners. (Ignore it, and a different fighter is crippled by the poisoned cake instead.) It turns out to be the work of the champion, Rawk Hawk, in response to a perceived slight against him by your character.

Critical Status Buff: Several badges — such as Close Call — will power up Mario or his partners when they're at low HP. Depending on the badge equipped, they can get an Attack buff, a Defense buff, or cause enemies to sometimes miss with their attacks.

Crosshair Aware: Magnus Von Grapple 2.0 sucks up audience members and uses a crosshair to aim them at Mario. It's just for show, though.

Cultural Translation: The Pianta Syndicate are styled like the Yakuza in the Japanese version, but in overseas releases they were switched to a Mafia stereotype.

Cumulonemesis: The Ruff Puffs return from the previous game and are just as shocking as ever. New variants are introduced as well: the Dark Puffs, the Poison Puffs, which can poison Mario, and the Ice Puffs, which can freeze him.

Cursed with Awesome: The black chests curse you... with the paper abilities you'll need to explore the next area/dungeon. One of the few instances where this is played for laughs. It's also justified by the fact that the "demons" are former heroes.

Peach, but like in the first game, she does a little more than just sit around and wait to be rescued. At the end of the chapters, you get to play as Peach sneaking around the X-Naut Fortress, looking for information to help Mario. This time the kidnapper isn't kidnapping Peach simply because he's an Abhorrent Admirer.

Luigi gets his own in the form of Princess Eclair, though it turns out that her kidnapper wasn't actually the main villain.

Dancing with Myself: During one of the interludes, Princess Peach waltzes with a hologram of herself provided by TEC.

Darker and Edgier: The Thousand-Year Door is definitely darker and edgier than its predecessor. It starts with the opening shot of the prologue looking right at a gallows in the middle of town, though judging from the lawless nature of the town the gallows is never actually used. The aptly named Rogueport is a textbook example of a Wretched Hive, predominantly inhabited by cutthroats and miscreants, and even they are terrified of what lurks behind the Thousand-Year Door. Many of the areas in the game - notably Twilight Town and its surrounding areas, Riverside Station, the Pit of 100 Trials, and the final dungeon itself - have a creepy atmosphere by any standard, let alone those of the famously family-friendly Mario franchise. There is a dark undertone that permeates throughout the entire game, and as the plot begins to unfold, players come to the realization that the ultimate motive of the X-Nauts and the Shadow Sirens is far more sinister than anyone could have initially imagined, with potentially world ending repercussions.

There's Twilight Town, and even your own party member, Vivian. Also, the black chests and the "demons" within. Discussed post-game when the single Twilight Town resident in Rogueport comments that the Shadow Queen's darkness was more of a creepy, sinister kind-of-dark as opposed to the one he prefers.

The Dark Bones mini-boss in the Palace of Shadow. His sole line of dialogue implies that he's trying to prevent the Shadow Queen from being awoken.

Deadly Doctor: X-Naut PhDs, who attack by throwing potions that have various effects on Mario and his partner.

Mario has to sign a contract that Grubba gives Mario to participate in the ring while advising him not to read all of it, and in fact, sign without reading it. Some of the lines in the contract include Mario not being able to leave the Glitz Pit until Grubba releases him. Oddly enough, Mario can leave Glitzville via blimp after signing the contract without any repercussions. (Although this could mean "don't leave our employ" rather than "don't leave the area".)

You can agree to the join the final boss to rule the world, though this results in a game over.

Death of a Thousand Cuts: The Yoshi partner specializes in doing lots of damage in 1-point increments, though he can't hurt enemies with Defense. Any sort of attack boost will cause the little guy to do ridiculous amounts of damage, though.

Degraded Boss: Upon arrival to the X-Naut Fortress, you'll immediately be attacked by a pair of Elite Mooks aptly called the Elite X-Nauts in a mini-boss battle. After defeating them, in the very next room you will encounter the Elite X-Nauts again as regular enemies.

Deliberately Monochrome: The foliage in Boggly Woods, for the most part, has no color. It's somewhat similar to Forever Forest from the previous game.

Demoted to Extra: While Bowser was the Big Bad in the first game, he (and by extension Kammy Koopa) only plays a minor role in this game, being always one step behind Mario. However, he does have his own interludes (In some of which he's Promoted to Playable in parodies of the original Super Mario Bros.), and accidentally stops Grodus from killing Mario in the nick of time.

Downplayed in the prologue. Your first visit to the east side will always feature a Bandit rushing you and picking every coin in your pocket... unless you've already spent it all at the shop. The only difference is that Goombella won't shout at the pick pocket because your wallet was already empty.

There are two bosses (the first Doopliss fight and the first form of the Shadow Queen) that have plot important events take place during the fight, but could be brought to 0 HP with certain setups before said events happen. If you do that, they'll inexplicably heal a certain amount and the event will begin.

If Vivian is selected as the partner during a certain cutscene before the start of Chapter 6, her sister Beldam will comment on her appearance.

The exit pipe from the Pit of 100 Trials is too high to reach from the ground, however you can immediately go down the pipe after exiting the Pit. If you do, it spits you back out and tells you that you can't use it.

Did You Actually Believe...?: Hooktail, when you fall for one of her schemes before she's defeated. She'll offer you a rare badge, 1,000 coins, and last but not least, to smell her feet.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Mario defeats the demonic Final Boss by jumping on it and hitting it with a hammer after being powered up by the Crystal Stars, admittedly.

Difficult, but Awesome: The Super Guard requires better timing than the standard guard, but nullifies all damage and deals damage to some attackers. The Simplifier badge lessens the strictness of the timing though.

Disappeared Dad: Koops' father, Koopley, left for Hooktail Castle ten years before the start of the game to slay Hooktail. It doesn't end well, which gives Koops the motivation to join Mario to avenge his dad. When they defeat Hooktail, though, the dragon spits up Koopley, who survived in her stomach for ten years.

You could count Kolorado's father. Since he suffered the same fate Koops thought of his father.

Disproportionate Retribution: Rawk Hawk goes to great lengths to prevent Mario from fighting him or from advancing. Why? Simply out of revenge for Mario and his partners allegedly calling his champion's belt fake and thus inadvertently implying that he was a bad fighter (and they weren't even talking about the belt itself, but the Crystal Star on him). Similarly, the Armored Adonis Twins in the same chapter wanted to beat Mario to a complete pulp, and later attempted to ambush Mario right after Mario defeated another group after losing to them in a rematch because Mario allegedly talked trash about their mom (something he didn't even do, but Grubba did while pinning the blame on Mario).

Downer Ending: This pretty much happens if you decide to become the Shadow Queen's servant, as the game says "The Shadow Queen engulfs the world with her foul magic. For Mario, Peach and the world it was... GAME OVER .

Dracolich: At the bottom of The Pit of 100 Trials lurks Bonetail, Hooktail's and Gloomtail's undead, skeletal sibling. He is by far the toughest enemy in the game, even harder that the Shadow Queen. Mercifully, he is a Bonus Boss.

The Dragon: Lord Crump. Beldam also counts, though she is The Dragon to the Shadow Queen and is actually the Big Bad of the game due to her manipulation of Grodus.

By far, The Shadow Queen, who is arguably one of the most heartless, evil Mario villains to ever have been onscreen. Her legend had stood strong during the events of the game, with people still talking about the four heroes who sealed her away. Her power is immense, shown when she basically kills Grodus with a single lightning bolt, drags the audience to hell to heal herself during the second phase of her fight, and attacks with all sorts of crazy moves that would leave you hurting badly.

Cortez, the pirate ghost king. Not only is he in control of thousands of malevolent pirate spirits, it goes without saying that he's the leader for a reason. Subverted after he helps Mario and the other stranded islanders defeat "Four-Eyes" (Lord Crump) and gets them safely back to Rogueport after Chapter 5.

Doopliss had his moment during the beginning of Chapter 4 where all of Twilight Town were being turned into pigs due to him making the bell ring throughout the land, leaving the remaining residents terrified as their loved ones became swine. Without a doubt, the suspense building up to who you would battle once you reached the steeple would be nerve racking your first time.

Dressing as the Enemy: Peach dons an X-Naut uniform at one point. Theoretically she could have used the costume in order to escape, though TEC only informs her that she needs to leave once he uncovers what Grodus and the Shadow Sirens have planned.

Elite Wizzerds deserve their own subsection, as the weakest of the three types of Wizzerd, the Dark Wizzerd, is an endgame mook with both regular Wizzerds and Elite Wizzerds being exclusive to the Pit of 100 Trials. Elite Wizzerds have a defense of 5, tied with Chain Chomps and Moon Clefts for the highest save for the Iron Clefts (who have an infinite defense and are only there as a Skill Gate for the arrival of a partner with an Armor-Piercing Attack), and due to their ability to float, they're immune to a number of your "attack everyone and pierce through defense" skills such as the Super and Ultra Hammers. (Well, the front one still gets hit, but it doesn't hit anyone else). They also have a base attack of 8, tied for third-highest in the game behind Amayzee Dayzees and Piranha Plants, 12 HP (fairly high, especially given that monstrous defense), access to a number of Status Buffs...and can come in groups of up to five, which even for the Pit of 100 Trials is a Wolfpack BossIn Mook Clothing.

Elopement: One subplot involves the daughter of a Pianta mafia don eloping with one of his underlings. The first time you meet, he agrees to secure you a ride to the place where the next Plot Coupon is if you bring them back. On finding them, they return of their own accord and he tells them to get lost but gives them his blessing in a roundabout way. They settle on a tropical island a few chapters later. In the next chapter you need a ride once again, so you return and find him sick (literally) with worry about them. One subquest later and you have your ticket, the couple and the Don reconcile and everyone's happy.

Escape Battle Technique: The game featured a "Run Away" option outside of most scripted fights, though it had a good chance of failing and cost coins (albeit coins that could be picked up afterward).

The upside is that mashing A quickly enough gets you a 100% success rate & the coins you lose land on the ground so you can get 'em back although you'll need to to avoid the enemy while you do it & they don't stay long.

Establishing Character Moment: For the whole setting, there are a few at the start that come in rapid succession to enforce that you're not in the fun-loving Mushroom Kingdom. The player's first clue that this game will be Darker and Edgier than the Mario norm? That would be the gallows in the center square. Then you see some toughs threatening someone in the background. Then a pickpocket robs Mario himself of half his coins.

When the Shadow Queen is finally released from her crypt and possesses Princess Peach, it quickly becomes apparent that she will not listen to Grodus as he had thought. After destroying him, she then offers Mario a Deal with the Devil.

In the "Super Luigi" book series, Minister Crepe, who called for help, turns out to have been behind the kidnapping all along.

Jolene is an inversion: Although it seems like she was the one who was making the fighters disappear, it was actually her boss, Grubba, who did the deed. And while she was trying to betray him, it was actually due to the fact that she wanted to stop him knowing how much of a scumbag he really was.

Evil Living Flames: Embers and Lava Bubbles return, with the former playing a major role in Chapter 5. Cortez summons an army of them to attack Flavio's ship, and later Lord Crump's ship. This game also introduces Phantom Embers, undead green fireballs found in the Palace of Shadow and the Pit of 100 Trials.

Played With in Twilight Town with the crows. Mario and Vivian learn by eavesdropping on the crows how to learn the name of the monster who stole his body. Of course, they have to listen to the right crows, or they get nothing but random philosophy or gossip.

In Chapter 3, while in the vent, the person you're spying on basically goes over his entire diabolical plan to himself. Just to grab your attention, he more or less says "And since I'm talking out loud here, I'll just put this extremely important piece of paper in this desk drawer here and leave. Ah, there we go. Right there in the drawer, nobody's gonna steal it at all."

Exactly Exty Years Ago: It's been a thousand years since the door was last opened, and ten years since Koops' father, Koopley, left for Hooktail Castle.

Expy: Many of the partners fill similar roles to the partners from the original Paper Mario, but one notable minor character is Grifty. Grifty's a green rodent who covers almost all of his body except his face and will share information on local history with you if you can find him at the end of the secret rooftop route in the easternmost section of town — exactly like Moustafa from the original.

Faceless Goons: Every X-Naut wears something over their face, and goggles. Much like Shy Guys, their true appearances are unknown.

Chapter Four would actually be the shortest Chapter in the game if it weren't for the fact that you're forced to go Back Tracking through the Twilight Trail four times.

Before Chapter Seven, you have to find a Bob-Omb named General White. This involves going to all the places you've already been to and finding out that's he's already long gone to somewhere else until he finally shows up at Fahr Outpost.

Fake Ultimate Hero: The Super Luigi books novelize Luigi's (mis)adventures in the Waffle Kingdom, but they also change a huge number of details to make Luigi look more heroic than he actually was. Among other things, they claim he played "a purifying earth spirit" in the Jazzafrazz Town play, when he was actually an inanimate patch of grass on the side of the road (but the town was full of Dayzees who idolized nature, and thus he was hailed by them). The end result is that the entire series is largely full of lies that is only loosely based on the truth, except for the ending.

False Innocence Trick: Every black chest you encounter will try its damnedest to convince you that it's an innocent victim trapped in a chest only to erupt out as an evil spirit and curse you. Of course, it becomes quickly apparent that Mario is being Cursed with Awesome, and the act has gone stale by the fourth chest, to the point that even Mario tells the chest to just shut up and curse him already. Grifty's stories imply that the four chest-spirits are actually the four heroes of legend who originally sealed the Shadow Queen beneath Rogueport a thousand years ago.

Fantastic Racism: The bob-ombs of Fahr Outpost are inherently distrustful of anyone who isn't a bob-omb. The only way Mario is able to get them to allow him use of their giant canon is to have Bobbery out to talk to them in his stead.

Fighter, Mage, Thief: Downplayed with the Shadow Sirens. Marilyn is the biggest and the strongest, making her the fighter. Beldam is the most magically adept, making her the mage. It's harder to spot with Vivian, but she's the only one who makes combat use of the Sirens' ability to disappear, casting her as the Thief.

Like the previous game, jumping on a Koopa or Buzzy Beetle will flip it on its back, rendering it helpless and dropping its defense (until it gets back up). However, the same can happen to your partner Koops.

Simultaneously subverted and inverted with Shady Koopas, who have the same "flipped" animation and have their defense dropped, but will attack with a stronger attack while they're on their backs.

Food Porn: Classic Paper Mario food cooking in all its glory. You'd be surprised how good cartoony 2D food can look.

Forceful Kiss: When Flurrie joins Mario's party, she decides to thank him for retrieving her lost necklace by "grabbing him and giving him a little sugar" even as he frantically shakes his head for her not to.

Foregone Conclusion: Luigi's Adventure. Before Luigi actually finishes his adventure, the book based on his adventure starts to release. The first volume of Super Luigi's first paragraph starts something like this: Have you ever tried your hardest to do something, fail, and then feel like you completely wasted your time. This is a story much like that. Now, this is a pretty accurate statement, consideringthe source. Except for the fact that Luigi isn't done with his quest yet. He won't be for at least two more chapters of Mario's Adventure. How does the book know?

Foreshadowing: In Twilight Town in Chapter 4, a villager makes a wish on the moon not to turn into a pig. When his wish is granted, he asks Mario who he thinks lives on the moon. The two answers are Little Green Men and Princess Peach. While you don't know at this point in the narrative, the latter actually is true - Princess Peach is in the X-Naut Base, which is later revealed to be on the moon. The NPC's response to this answer is pregnant with foreshadowing.

Twilighter: Ha ha ha! Too funny! You must be a dreamer... What an imagination!

For the Evulz: Doopliss, who curses the people of Twilight Town to transform into pigs as an ironic prank.

The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: An In-Universe example, played straight and also at times Inverted. The battles all take place on a stage, which seems merely a charming aesthetic maneuver until you realize that there are mechanics based around "audience participation". For example, the audience will sometimes throw items or rocks at Mario, some of the audience (usually Shy Guys) will disappear backstage and mess around, causing some stage malfunction that can cause either damage or a status effect, and some audience members will spontaneously use their powers when they get too excitednote Crazee Dayzees will sing, for example, sending large portions of the audience to sleep, and Bulky Bob-ombs can explode, decreasing the number of attendees; the main effect you will be familiar with is exploiting audience cheers to refill your Star Meter (learn your Stylish Moves!). Vice versa is also true, regarding some of the bosses. Hooktail introduces the inverse after an attempt to beguile Mario during their boss battle, retreating off stage... only to spring into the audience and start eating them. The audience doesn't stop getting tortured there, as they can get devoured by Cortez if you aren't quick enough, used as cannon fodder for Magnus 2.0, and fed by undead hands to the Shadow Queen.

Frothy Mugs of Water: In the North American release, Bobbery refers to his final beverage as Chuckola Cola, and the icon had been turned purple. In the original Japanese version, the drink was literally Bintejireddo, meaning Vintage Red, a type of red wine.

Funny Octopus: Blooey the Blooper. Unlike Mario's partners, who followed Mario out of respect or another benevolent reason, Blooey, as well as the rest of Luigi's partners (excluding Hayzee), follows Luigi around out of a desire for revenge after Luigi accidentally threw him into lava.

The Gadfly: Lord Crump has a lot of amusing insults he likes to throw at others.

Rogueport, as it contains many pirates as well. It even has a gallows.

Generic Doomsday Villain: While the Shadow Queen is both directly and indirectly responsible for nearly all of the game's events, she seemingly exists only for the sake of the game having a twist, with only extremely vague hints of her motives being shown in the secret messages in the Riddle Tower in Chapter 8.

Get It Over With: The cursed chests. By the fourth cursed chest, even Mario, mute as he is in these games, is getting tired of the whole rigmarole. The cursed chest ends up quite hurt by the whole thing.

There is a noose prominently displayed in the middle of Rogueport. The way it is displayed means that the hangings are public, similar to old towns back in the day, though it's never actually used.

This game seems to delight in getting gang and drug references past the censors.

One is the gang war between what are essentially the wealthy Mafia (The Yakuza in Japan) and a poor street gang.

There are also conspicuous skulls jammed on stakes on either side of Rogueport. Note that this is a common way for a drug dealer to mark his territory.

One of the troubles deals with bringing a mysterious package to someone in the back alley of Rogueport.

At one point before Chapter 3 Professor Frankly says the Phrase "Assuming will just make" before cutting himself off and instead just ends it saying "well you know the saying" meaning he's referring to the old phrase "Assuming will make an ass out of you and me". Flurrie's response makes it even more obvious. "Oh, yes. How inappropriate."

Princess Peach winds up being naked on more than one occasion, as well, although the player can never see her (either she's showering behind a curtainnote hacking the game reveals that it uses her fully dressed sprite behind the curtain or she's invisible).

Everything that has to do with Flurrie, from her seemingly naked appearance to what might seem like her breasts making noise when they gainaxnote actually the sound she makes by hovering, which Vivian also produces. She is the source of subliminal boob jokes. Where does Mario grab when she uses her blowing ability?

A Bob-omb refers to businessmen as "brown nosers". The phrase "brown noser" essentially means someone who sucks up or "kisses ass", and comes from what would happen if you literally kissed someone's ass too far.

A pair of crows in Twilight Town can be overheard discussing their internet. One mentions that it's primarily games and feather-loss sites driving the expansion.

In-universe, TEC gives Peach vital information by wrapping it into a quiz format.

The Smorg during Chapter 6. While they get a brief bit of foreshadowing during the visit to Riverside Station, they are still completely unrelated to the plot and there's no reason give as to why they attacked. note A scene cut from the game showed that it was something sent by the Shadow Sirens. You were supposed to fight the Shadow Sirens in the basement of the train station, but this was all cut, so it's never explained where Smorg came from in the final version. Also, there's an NPC that pops up randomly on the Excess Express post-Chapter 6, a Goomba researcher, who heavily implies that there's more of them, wondering what the feeding habits of the wild Smorg are, then asking you if you've seen one, which you must have by then.

Luigi parodies this; after beating the Chestnut King, what he vaguely describes as a huge nightmarish monster appeared that he took out. The Super Luigi books says the "monster" was actually Minister Crepe, who had been using Luigi all along.

Gladiator Subquest: After becoming champion of the Glitz Pit in Chapter 3, you can return to fight your way back up the ranks and reclaim your title afterwards.

Finding the Atomic Boo. Remember the church full of Boos clinging to you and sending you back to the entrance? You can send them flying with a Spin Attack. Do so until the boss shows up. To the game's credit, it tries to give to you a clue — notice how the Boos are spinning as they crowd you.

Finding General White in Chapter 7. You need to backtrack to most major chapter locations out of order, talk to certain characters, and head back to Fahr Outpost. The townsperson you need to talk to can be either a major NPC (the bartender in Glitzville) or a minor one (a Twilight Towner in an innocuous corner), and their hints are designed with the idea you're expecting a run-around beforehand. The last hint doesn't even give you a location, just the hint "he said he was tired" which the player is supposed to read as "he returned to his home in Fahr Outpost." Notably, there's nothing in the game prior to this point to notify you the house he's in has anything to do with General White.

Any time you need to use Vivian's ability to get an unseen, hiding NPC to reveal themselves, most notably while finding the ghost in Chapter 6.

Having a Blast: With his special talent of blowing things up, this trope is embodied in Admiral Bobbery.

Heavy Sleeper: General White. "Sleeping like a 'stached baby." And you need to wake him twice.

The Heckler: This is taken to the extreme with the audience watching all your battles, who often throw things at you. Also, Shy Guys may run up on the stage and cause mayhem, Boos can fly into things and make them transparent, big Bob-Ombs can explode half the audience away, etc.

HeelFace Turn: TEC, Vivian, and Cortez. Rawk Hawk definitely may qualify as a Face to all of his fans, but for the majority of Chapter 3, he's the biggest heel behind the scenes you could imagine. First, he's the one who poisoned one of the cakes left for Mario in the locker room. A real Jerkass moment. Then, he bribes a security guard to lock Mario in one of the unused locker rooms so he'd miss his title match, that being the championship title with him, Rawk Hawk. Eventually, it's subverted because he changes his attitude towards you after losing.

Henchmen Race: The "Yux" series, belonging to the X-Nauts, were created for the sole purpose of being guards and soldiers for the X-Naut society.

Here We Go Again!: The ending has Peach finding another treasure map and inviting Mario to come with her to search for the treasure.

Hero of Another Story: Luigi goes on his own adventure to save a princess. He even gets a book series written about it.

Heroic Mime: Mario, almost. He speaks, but only as dialogue responses chosen by the player. Goombella lampshades this during Chapter 4 after Doopliss has switched places with Mario. "Wow... You, like, NEVER talk!"

Hitodama Light: One chapter is searching for a pirate ghost's treasure. Balls of flame, representing the dead, play a prominent role; attacking the ship at the start and as common enemies throughout the island.

Hive Mind: Downplayed with the Smorg, which works and attacks as a well-organized mass.

Vivian and Goombella both decide to keep their crushes on Mario to themselves because they know Peach is his Implied Love Interest.

I Surrender, Suckers: Hooktail attempts this when she runs out of HP, and tries to bribe you with coins, badges, and smelling her feet. If you fall for it, she will attack you for massive damage. Regardless of whether you fall for it or not, she will eat members of the audience, and the battle will continue without an audience.

I Will Show You X: Flavio during Chapter 5 sings a song many times where he mentions a "Boom-Bassa Boom Festival!" Well, after spending so long in his company, apparently Four-Eyes (Crump) had quite enough of Flavio's annoyances and when he attacks the island in his giant battleship, he makes fun of them all by shouting: "How's THAT for Boom-Bassa Boom?!"

Impossible Thief: The Duplighost that is terrorizing Twilight Town was somehow able to steal a letter from the player's keyboard, preventing his name from being completed until it's physically retrieved from the Creepy Steeple basement.

Incidental Villain: Although Grubba isn't a saint by any means, had he not got caught up in all the fame and glory of being a famous athlete, he wouldn't have had to use the crystal star's power to keep himself young and strong by draining his employees. He even goes as far as to compliment Mario's abilities many times, even during their final battle.

Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Bowser. He spends the entire game following just behind Mario, losing out on every single Crystal Star and just generally accomplishing nothing he attempts to. Unlike the first game, he's little more than Comic Relief and the occasional battle in the grand scheme of the plot.

Each time you finally get your hands on a Crystal Star, the game will tell you about its special powers in battle and what they do. So when you get the Ruby Star in Chapter 4 only to move on without learning about its abilities, you know something's up.

A more minor example is that whenever Goombella uses Tattle on an enemy, their place of origin, so to speak, is mentioned in their entry. Because certain enemies can be encountered before then (Most notably in the Glitz Pit and the Pit of 100 Trials), this can lead to you finding out about a particular place before you actually get there.

On the flip side, not using Tattle on most enemies with limited encounter windows causes their entries to appear in Frankly's trash can. So if you fail to use Tattle on the Shadow Sirens, you may wonder why you get Vivian's entry from the trash can, but not Beldam's or Marilyn's.

Courtesy of a minor glitch, if you hire the secret character Ms. Mowz at first opportunity, make someone else the active party member, and select to use an item outside of battle, you'll have the option to use it on someone who hasn't actually joined your party yet (Bobbery).

Interspecies Romance: Implied with Princess Eclair and the Chestnut King from the Super Luigi books. Though neither character's species is explicitly said, Luigi swooning about her beauty implies the Princess was human, while the Chestnut King's Japanese name suggests he is a Goomba.

All of the female members of Mario's party have feelings for him, despite that none of them are human like he is.

One of the troubles from the trouble centre revolves around one. A woman in Twilight Town asks Mario to get into contact with her old lover, the bartender of the Chukola Cola bar, who is Beanish.

Invincible Minor Minion: The Spiny can roll itself up into a completely invincible ball, and it can't be attacked until the next turn. Its stronger variant, the Sky-Blue Spiny, uses this method to power itself up.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Characters like Rawk Hawk and Cortez start off abrasive and antagonistic, but ultimately warm up to Mario and co. and decide to help them out in the end. Grubba arguably qualifies as this trope, too, albeit more on the Affably Evil side.

Joke Item: Several of the badges are situational at best and useless at worst. In particular, the SFX badges aside from Attack FX R do nothing but add sounds to your attacks. The Slow Go badge prevents Mario from running, and the Double Pain badge is pretty obvious.

Jump Scare: There are several points where a loud jarring sound will play when the player discovers something unpleasant. A more prominent one being Ghost T. when he asks you a favour. His dialogue suddenly bursts onto the screen accompanied by the screen shaking profusely with a loud sound playing.

Ghost T: All I need is... YOUUURRR LIIIIIFE!!!!... Just kidding.

Just Eat Him: Hooktail gets hungry after her first phase and decides to gobble up the audience.

Just a Machine: TEC calls himself this word for word during his final moments, to convince Mario and co. to forget about him and to go save Peach.

Kaizo Trap: Very rarely if you're unlucky. Occasionally, at the end of a battle, the final attack will cause the stage background to fall after the enemies are dead, but before the victory dance. In the off chance that you have only 1 HP and forget to defend, you will die.

Beldam and the Shadow Sirens. Despite loyally serving and unleashing an unspeakable horror upon the earth, they get off with a few apologies and promises. Doopliss even goes on to be an actor with Flurrie.

Cortez never gets called out on the fact that he devoured the souls of several members of the audience to restore his HP. It is never brought up again afterwards and does not serve as an obstacle to his Defeat Equals Friendship with Mario and co.

Like Beldam, Hooktail had a long history of serving the Shadow Queen and killing innocents. Returning to her castle after chapter 1 reveals she simply relocated elsewhere. And unlike Beldam, She didn't apologize and likely won't change her ways.

Lethal Joke Character: The Danger Mario build requires Mario to become one. For most of the game, he'll need to have no health upgrades, and he'll die in only 1-2 hits. The lethal part comes when you have enough badges to turn him into the massively-evasive Glass Cannon he becomes near the end.

Some times after finding Koopok for his Trouble Center sidequest, he will send an e-mail saying he's hiding in a cold location. In the original Japanese and most translations, the location in question is the Crystal Palace from the original Paper Mario. The English localization, however, renders as the completely made-up "Goomstar Temple", losing the Continuity Nod.

The final RDM email in the original Japanese script and most translation of the games has a special hidden section found by scrolling down for a long time, which mentions Chuck Quizmo from the first game as well as a recipe. For whatever reason, the English translation removed this section entirely but left in the statement alluding to its existence ("May we meet again... sooner than you think *wink *wink*), confusing many players.

Lost Woods: The Boggly Woods. Interestingly the graphics style looks like film negatives.

Low-Level Advantage: The "Danger Mario" setup backfires at level 72, because your BP and SP will both be maxed at that point, so you will be forced to upgrade HP, breaking the status. Actually getting one's level this high takes extreme amounts of Level Grinding, however.

MacGuffin Delivery Service: When the heroes confront Magnus von Grapple 2.0; Crump announces that he plans to beat Mario & Co. to take the six Crystal Stars they had; thus, the X-Nauts would have all seven (as he was guarding that one). Mario and his party defeat Crump and Magnus, and take the Crystal Star he was guarding. Played straight shortly after, when the party is tricked into believing the villains had entered ahead of them thanks to the enchantment on the door weakening. Justified; the enchantment was weakening—which is one reason Mario & Co. had to gather the Crystal Stars; they would need them to re-seal the door should it open of its own accord.

Magic Map: The game begins when Princess Peach is tricked into unlocking a chest with one of these inside. She gets kidnapped for her trouble, but she manages to send it to Mario with the promise of adventure just in time. While mostly blank at first, whenever it's presented to the Thousand Year Door, new territory spontaneously appears on the parchment (even distinctly modern locations like the Glitz Pit and Poshley Heights) leading the way to a new Crystal Star. Of course, knowing where the Crystal Stars are is no guarantee that somebody else is already after them.

Let's not forget about the Shy Guys; though their role is downplayed in this installment. They aren't fought in this game, just a rare hindrance/helper during battles. They can run backstage and cause something to fall on either Mario or the enemy.

Mana Burn: Flower Fuzzies can suck up your FP and use it as their own.

The Man Behind the Man: Beldam is this, as Grodus appeared to be the Big Bad right up until he succeeded at summoning the Shadow Queen, only to get zapped into nothing but a head, and it was revealed that he'd been manipulated all along.

Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest: One of the troubles you can take on at the Trouble Center is "Roust These Cads!", in which you are expected to fight all the enemies in the Boggly Woods for a reward of 20 coins (plus drops and Star Points).

The Bowser interlude after Chapter 6 happens to take place riiiight in front of that huge chest in Rogueport that has been taunting you the whole game, but you might have forgotten about by now. This clues the player into the fact that you can finally get it now.

The one time you catch the Pianta Syndicate doing anything really bad is in the prologue, when Tony and Vinny ambush and beat up a passing pair of Robbo Gang members (Gus and Garf?), which lets you know that Rogueport isn't just rough around the edges, but actually dangerous.

Beldam is a pun on "beldame", an old-fashioned English word for an ugly old woman. It's also a play on "bedlam" (chaos) with the two middle letters swapped around.

TEC's full name is TEC-XX. The two Xs could be read as "double cross", appropriate given the character's role in the story.

Middle Child Syndrome: Marilyn of the Shadow Sirens. Although being the strongest, she doesn't have too big of a role compared to Beldam and Vivian. However, Vivian is usually the one that's abused/left out.

Monster Compendium: Goombella's Tattle Log holds abridged info on all the enemies she's tattled. Should you fail to tattle an enemy before it becomes lost (such as a boss or a X-Naut), its entry will end up in Frankly's trash bin for you to pick up. Oddly, there are some enemies which have entries appear in Frankly's trash appear before the enemy is lost (the Red Bones and the standard Yux model).

Monumental Theft: Doopliss successfully hid the letter p in a chest in the basement of Creepy Steeple.

Musical Nod: The music for Petal Meadows contains part of the main theme from Super Mario Bros. and the music for the Palace of Shadow is full of riffs from the Underground and Castle themes from the same game, as well as drips of the Castle theme from Super Mario Bros. 3.

When Mario ('Great Gonzales' to everyone at this point) walks into the arena of the Glitz Pit before his fight with Rawk Hawk, the camera makes a short pan over the entire crowd, who is unanimously shouting "Gonzales, Gonzales!" except for one person who quickly shouts "Jumpman! Wait... what?"

One of the badges you can buy from Charlieton is named "Jumpman". Its brother "Hammerman" riffs on the idea, but is valid in the same right (picking up the Hammer in Donkey Kong denied you the ability to jump).

There's a handful of veiled references to the Nintendo 64, which was the console for the original Paper Mario. Ishnail of the Robbo Thieves will sell Mario information in exchange for a payment of 64 coins. Every Super Luigi book sells for a multiple of 64 coins, and Mario is challenged to 65th and 66th Annual Super Fun Quirk Quizzes, subtle references to the 64th Trivia Quiz-Off that Peach participated in during the previous game.

Near-Villain Victory: In the final area of the game, Grodus nearly manages to achieve his plan of conquering the world... unfortunately for him, The Shadow Queen wasn't about to be bossed around, practically destroying him with a bolt of lightning.

Never My Fault: Never Beldam's fault, shifting blame to Vivian, and later to Doopliss. Marilyn rarely gets blamed for anything, but she's not exactly respected, either.

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Happens when Mario and co. are tricked by Doopliss (disguised as Professor Frankly) into opening the Thousand-Year Door so the villains can get through. However, it's implied that this was for the best in the end, and the seal was already weakening.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Near the very end of the game, the only reason that Grodus doesn't manage to kill Mario is because of a timely, accidental interruption by Bowser.

The Nicknamer: Zess T. absolutely refuses to use Mario's real name after he accidentally destroys her contact lens. She also refers to Toadsworth with the pet name "Toadle-toes".

Not Completely Useless: Kiss Thief is Ms. Mowz's best move and is often cited to be the only reason to even obtain her into the party, which is completely true. Kiss Thief can help a lot for badge stacking sake and it can steal Coins from enemies not holding badges, Steal your stolen inventory like Items or Badges back from Bandits and useful for badge grinding. Especially since the chances are better to steal the Badge than to have a low chance of getting it after battle if you miss it. However Kiss Thief is not without issues. It's still limited by "Front Target Only" meaning unless you Clock Out or KO enemies in front of the badge holder Kiss Thief will miss the chance to be useful. It also can't steal from Fire, Spike or Flying enemies.

No Fair Cheating: By altering the Gamecube console's internal clock ahead for joining Rogueport's daily lottery multiple times, the event will be blocked until you talk to Lucky the Bob-omb to apologize by buying another lottery ticket for 500 coins.

NOTE: Cheating at the Lucky Lottery twice does NOT induce a game over; it just has the same effects it does the first time. Although there is a YouTube video that seems to claim otherwise, it is just a montage and a theory; in the actual game, all it does is to make Lucky angry again.

No Hero Discount: No matter what town you save, they'll still charge you money for everything. Even the recovery blocks require coins, the amount of which is marked on top.

If the Dry Bones in the Palace of Shadow pushes you out of the room, you'll get squished.

Agreeing to join the Shadow Queen's side before the final boss fight will cause a Game Over, despite the fact that you're still alive.

Not Me This Time: Just before the fight with Rawk Hawk begins, it's revealed that he was responsible for locking Mario and his partner(s) in the second minor-league locker room, and also for the poisoned cake delivered just before one of the earlier fights. But when the partner accuses Rawk Hawk of sending the threatening messages regarding the Crystal Star, he doesn't know what they're talking about. (He's not responsible.)

Not Rare Over There: After returning to a mafia Don who was part of a previous quest, you find him deathly ill and his bodyguards promise you the tickets for a trip on the Excess Express you need if you find his daughter and son-in-law (who he exiled at the end of said quest). Upon recovering when they return to his side, he's furious when he hears about said promise... until you state what you were promised; he bursts into laughter and asks how many you want.

No, You: The red Armored Harrier throws one at Mario when Grubba claims Mario called him a stinkwad. (Which he didn't.)

One Stat to Rule Them All: Badge Points. They allow for the most customization of your character and, due to FP and HP plus badges being easily available at the parlor, were practically interchangeable with the other two as long as you were willing to spend some time playing minigames.

Open-Ended Boss Battle: Every fight in Chapter 3, except the Armored Harriers without the chapter's party member and Macho Grubba, who wants to get rid of Mario.

In a rare case of one being able to harm you, near the climax of Chapter 2, a time bomb is set off in the Great Boggly Tree. When you reach the base of the tree, the Puni Elder confronts Lord Crump, resulting in her spending some time complaining about her back.

At one point Mario needs to help out a pair of newly-wed Piantas with finding their wedding rings. This leads to a scene where the husband is forced to say "I love you" to his wife 100 times, and you have to sit through him saying it. After a while a counter even appears to tell you how many times it's been said.

Palette Swap: There are two badges you can collect to change Mario's outfit. One is the L Emblem, found in the Poshley Sanctum, which makes Mario's outfit have Luigi's green color scheme. The other can be bought from Charlieton, the W Emblem, which gives Mario Wario's yellow and purple color scheme. If you wear them at the same time, Mario's outfit gets Waluigi's purple and black color scheme.

Papa Wolf: Don Pianta. The tasks you do for him are related to his daughter and his former employee/son-in-law.

Paper-Thin Disguise: Lord Crump's pirate disguise. He even breaks the fourth wall, acknowledging that his disguise is crap and asking the player not to tell Mario who he really is.

Then there's Fahr Outpost, a snowy region populated by bombs who wear bearskin hats. Their mayor speaks broken English peppered with 'da's and vehemently denies the existence of a superweapon on the base.

The official Nintendo Player's Guide actually lampshaded this: "Considering most of the Bob-ombs speak with Russian accents, those of you who grew up in the '60s may feel a bit nervous when you see the enormous weapon rise from a silo. Resist the urge to hide under a desk and tuck your head between your legs."

Pass the Popcorn: All fights have an audience watching. No matter what situation they're in. And being in the audience can be hazardous during boss fights: Hooktail the dragon takes a bite out of the audience to restore HP, after which the battle spills into the stands; Cortez does the same, but with the souls of some of the viewers; Lord Crump fires audience members at you from a cannon, and the Shadow Queen subsumes the entire audience to heal herself fully, putting you in a very sticky situation.

The first battle against Magnus von Grapple has an interesting audience composition; the left side of the audience is full of Punies, while the right side is full of X-Nauts, as if the Punies are cheering on Mario and company, while the X-Nauts are cheering on their boss, Lord Crump.

Peninsula of Power Leveling: You can encounter Amayzee Dayzees in the fourth chapter. After gaining the fourth chapter's Star Power, you can go to the area where they're found (preferably under the effects of the special spell that can sometimes double your experience), use said power to quickly defeat them, and bask in the levels.

Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The two groups of organized crime in Rogueport- the Robbo Gang and the Pianta Syndicate- are rarely seen participating in criminal activities (unless the gambling in the Pianta Parlor is considered illegal). The only actual scene displaying their turf war is in the very beginning of the game in the background where two Pianta guards and two Craws fight in town square. Don Pianta mentions some mafia-esque protection racketeering, but no one else ever brings it up, as the only shops in his turf are owned by him.

Playable Epilogue: The first in the series — Super Mario RPG and the original Paper Mario would only send you back to the last Save Block.

Playing a Tree: Luigi performs in a play and gets the role of... grass. He's the only one who never got any lines, either. Subverted, however, in that he was playing to an audience of flowers. Grass is very important to them, so they absolutely adored him!

Grubba is using a Crystal Star to stay youthful but is overwise divorced from the plot.

Doopliss is terrorizing the people of Twilight Town by turning everyone into pigs and steals Mario's body, but is not connected the plot. Later he joins Beldam, but his actions in Twilight Town had nothing to do with Grodus.

Cortez is simply guarding his treasure after his death and winds up joining Mario's side, even fighting Lord Crump.

Smorg is a completely random Eldritch Abomination attacking the train with no connection to Grodus (originally it was to be sent by Beldam, but this was cut during production).

Bowser spends the entire game moping about someone else kidnapping Peach and replacing him as the Big Bad. He eventually has a fight with Mario, but has nothing to do with the plot.

Plot Twist: Especially for players familiar with Super Mario RPG and the original Paper Mario, which also sent you on quests to recover seven stars. This time, collecting all the goodies advances the villains' agenda — Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!.

Poor Communication Kills: Cortez fights you to protect his treasure, but afterwards you explain that you only want the Crystal Star and he simply gives it to you because he doesn't care about it.

Pop Quiz: A Thwomp in the game's introduction area pops up to ask you some basic questions. Near the end of the game he returns for Round 2, this time in a cybernetic version.

TEC tries to get some expression from Peach by using a pop quiz of his own.

Portal Network: The Mario franchise's signature pipes are required to get to most areas.

Post-Final Boss: Unusual, smaller-scale example. Cortez is the "final boss" local to Chapter 5, and the end-of-chapter bells and whistles occur after his defeat, but then you have to have a miniboss battle against Lord Crump before everything is at peace for the chapter.

Powerup Mount: Yoshi, a baby Boisterous Bruiser that can carry a plumber three times his size and still move twice as fast as his passenger. Bonus points in chapter 5, where he has to carry Flavio as well.

Pro Wrestling Is Real: The main appeal of the Glitz Pit. That said, under Grubba's proprietorship, every match is a Worked Shoot of some kind or another, since Grubba goes out of his way to earn Mario extra enmity whenever he Trash Talks on the Great Gonzales' behalf. For extra drama, Grubba imposes some restriction to be observed during the match if the competitor wants a chance to advance, like forbidding Mario to use his hammer. As a treat to anyone who's made it to a championship match, the "restriction" is that the competitor use a Limit Breakat least once.

There's a kid NPC in Petalburg who goes on about an awesome new video game he's playing. The title? Fire Emblem.

The monitor you use to reserve a fight in the Glitz Pit in TTYD is a Game Boy Advance.

Pennington also "deduces" that what the young Bob-omb Bub wants for his birthday is a Game Boy Advance "because that's what all the kids want these days".

Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: "Hold the Magical Map aloft before the entrance to the Thousand-Year Door. Then the stars will light the way that leads to the stones of yesterday."

Punch-Clock Villain: Most of the lesser X-Nauts. Implied for most of the game with their over-casual nature and general uncoordination in the area of Mookery, and confirmed if you examine the chem lab notes with Mario: "I have some stuff to do, so I'm not coming in to work tomorrow, and that's that." Also, they tend to appear as audience members.

Punny Name: Most of the Toads have one, like the cook, Zess T., or the heavy eater, Heff T.

Rags to Riches: A Rogueport resident named Lumpy will ask you for money to start an oil prospecting expedition to the Dry Dry Desert. He will strike it rich and come back as a wealthy entrepreneur to repay your investment threefold. (Give him 300 coins and you will receive 999 coins.)

Luigi's team is even better. He's got a crispy floating squid, a living bomb that looks like a cherry, a disgruntled mechanic who builds roving death vehicles, a spacey actor, and a mysterious thing that must deliver a package. All of them are with Luigi to keep him from doing/not doing something or other.

"Rashomon"-Style: In most cases, the story Luigi tells contrasts with the account given by the partner. Interestingly, only the second accountnote The first account has no partner to confirm or contradict the story Luigi tells is irreconciliably contradicted by that of Luigi's partner (Blooey in this case)—and it's also impossible to take Blooey's account as complete truth, as it fails to explain how Luigi secured that second compass piece. Mostly, the partners' conversations are used to reveal their real motivations for following Luigi around. There is also the author of the Super Luigi books, who plays him up even more than the man in green himself.

Reality Ensues: Flavio spent his time pre-Chapter 5 bragging about being the richest man in Rogueport. After the events of Chapter 5, he admits he's now the second-richest man in Rogueport. That expedition cost money to set up and not having gained any treasure to make up for it (and also losing his fancy ship) obviously hurt his finances. Flavio doesn't seem to mind, having gained the adventure he sought in the first place.

Recognition Failure: A Running Gag; whenever Mario meets a village elder, they're behind the times and don't recognize him (to the annoyance of their younger relatives).

The Shadow Sirens are fought in Chapter 2 and again in Chapter 8, with the noticeable change in that, between fights, Doopliss replaces Vivian.

Bowser engages Mario in a fight towards the end of Chapter 3, and then becomes the penultimate boss of the game along with Kammy.

Mario gets in a fight with the Chapter 4 boss more than any other boss in the game. After beating him once, you're required to go through at least two Hopeless Boss Fights where neither of you can beat each other, and then you rematch him while he has your partners for the real final battle of the chapter. When that's said and done, there's still one last fight with him in Chapter 8 along with Beldam and Marilyn.

Recurring Extra: The Toad Sisters and Dupree show up in the various locations you visit.

Red Herring: In Chapter 3, Jolene isn't responsible for the disappearances, and Rawk Hawk isn't sending you the threatening emails and has no clue about what's happening behind the scenes.

Retired Badass: Bobbery is an elderly Bob-omb who used to be a tough sailor. Even after coming out of retirement and joining Mario, he's still a capable combatant.

Retirony: In chapter 3, KP Pete (aka King K) announces his plans to retire from the Glitz Pit after his match with Mario. After the match, and his retirement, he ends up stumbling on Grubba's use of the Gold Star, the real one to maintain his youth, and ends up silenced. A slight twist in that he doesn't end up killed, although he is certainly beaten to a huge pulp and barely even able to breathe.

There's a recurring NPC called Dupree that visits the same places that Mario does. Having Goombella use Tattle on him will yield different information (and some snark) depending on the location. The Travelling Sisters Three (a group of Toad triplets) will also pop up again and again.

In every chapter, Mario is called by the wrong name at some point or another. Hard-of-hearing village elders tend to mishear his name, he is forced to use a stage name in the Glitz Pit, and is even mistaken for Luigi by a main character in Chapter 6 (although he eventually realizes his mistake and apologizes). In Chapter 4, his name is stolen.

There four black chests with "evil spirits" in them, with each one "cursing" Mario. By the fourth and last, the spirit actually requests that Mario and company let him do his thing like the others.

There are a number of times where Goombella will either break the fourth wall or potentially be present when somebody else breaks it. When this happens, she will respond by lampshading it.

Say My Name: With a twist at the end of Chapter 4. Mario's allies say his name out of shock when he is "defeated" in battle by the "fake" Mario, but they quickly find out that the Mario they were with was just Doopliss in disguise while the other Mario is the real deal.

Schizo Tech: Grodus is a cyborg with a moon base. Lord Crump has a giant robot. Mario has a handheld device that receives email. Despite this, you ride to Keelhaul Key for Chapter 5 in an old-fashioned sailing vessel.

When Hooktail's HP gets depleted, it will attempt to plea bargain with Mario 3 times in succession. Accepting any of the offers will cause Hooktail to attack Mario.

Go ahead, ignore the repeated warnings and read the diary of the Toad ghost. You'll get a Non-Standard Game Over for your troubles.

In Chapter 3, there is a cake delivered to the locker room just after you accept the 2nd seed battle. Fall for it by eating it, and you won't have your partner for the next battle. Don't, and Shellshocker, the Shady Koopa, will be on the floor, unable to move. Subverted with a similar cake delivered earlier in the chapter; that one will actually recharge your HP, FP, andStar Power.

Schrödinger's Gun: Right after Zess T. tells you about her lost contact lens, no matter where you move, you will always end up stepping on them. She'll deny you passage to the west side of town until you replace it, which isn't possible until after completing the first chapter, even if you break it before leaving for Petalburg.

Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: About halfway through the game, Vivian decides that she's fed up with Beldam's abuse and leaves to join the mysterious shadowy person, even sticking around once he's revealed to be Mario.

Played with throughout the game, in which Mario encounters four black chests containing supposedly innocent beings only to reveal themselves as evil spirits upon being freed, which they follow up by cursing Mario... with aSecond Hour Superpower.

Exaggerated with the Final Boss. The Shadow Queen is sealed within a stone casket that can only be opened with a non-lethal human sacrifice. This casket is hidden in a crypt behind a secret door in the innermost depths of the Palace of Shadow, beyond its myriad monsters and mechanisms, which is sealed behind the humongous Thousand Year Door, which is itself sealed by the power of the seven Crystal Stars. The Crystal Stars have been scattered across the country, and the Magical Map meant to lead the way to each of them was sealed away in a chest that could only be opened by the pure of heart. Didja get all that?

Self-Imposed Challenge: It is technically possible to defeat Bonetail before you challenge Hooktail, the first boss with a Crystal Star, though you do have to visit Hooktail's castle first (as the only way to get to the Pit requires an ability you get at the castle, and only there). However you will find yourself doing the Pit of 100 Trials many times before you can end up facing him. It is extremely difficult but it is possible.

Sequel Difficulty Spike: While the game isn't too much harder in comparison to the previous game, it's still quite a bit difficult overall; enemies have more health and strength than they did before and they can also carry items and use them against you. The game also has several kinds of Non-Standard Game Over (some you can get around while others you'd have to jump into them on purpose) whereas the previous game didn't have any. Some bosses have attacks that can't be guarded or super guarded.

Sequential Boss: Cortez, and later Grodus, followed immediately by Bowser and Kammy.

"Shaggy Dog" Story: All of the Bowser segments. He and Kammy fail to accomplish anything, are reduced to essentially Giant Space Flea from Nowhere status (not unlike the earlier Smorg) in Chapter 8, and that's the last we ever see or even hear of them. The one saving grace, however, is that these segments arguably contain the game's greatest humor.

Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: Not quite an exact use, but referenced: When the Shadow Queen takes over Peach's body at the end, Goombella tells you that no matter how much it looks like your friend, you can't think of it that way and just have to fight it.

Shark Pool: Every deep body of water contains Chain Chomp-like fish (which Goombella calls a "Nibbles" at one point) ready to chomp on Mario, even water fountains and swimming pools. At one point, Goombella even lampshades this in a place with a prominent fountain.

Beldam insults Vivian by calling her a man in the Japanese version. Whether this means she was a transwoman or if it was just that, an insult, is frequently debated. Mario and Goombella seem to believe the former judging from the tattle log, though whether this is a confirmation or part of the joke is also debated. The other European localisations generally take the Japanese script at face-value and consider her either a transvestite or transgender.

Bonetail is referred to as female in some translations of the game.

Shoo Out the Clowns: After Lord Crump's final defeat, the story starts to become nightmarish and disturbing.

The Toad who fought the Shadow Queen with a Goomba, a Boo and a Koopa could be this to the Japanese fairy tale of Momotaro, who fought off a demon and its entourage with the help of a dog, a bird and a monkey.

Space Zone: Mario goes to the Moon during Chapter 7 even though he doesn't need a helmet at any time.

Spectator Casualty: A few of the bosses attack the audience members. Mario can as well, though usually only when one of them threatens him.

The Spiny: Aside from the trope namer, of course (and its stronger counterpart, the Sky-Blue Spiny), there's a few other enemies that also fit in this category.

Spiky Parabuzzies are a Spike Top and Parabuzzy hybrid, meaning they're immune to stomps and immune to ground-based attacks; being a Buzzy Beetle variant means they laugh off fire and explosions as well.

Bristles are rock monsters with spikes all over themselves, hurting Mario if he tries to jump on them or hammer them without the Spike Shield badge equipped. Luckily, the regular variety has very low HP and can be taken out easily with an item, but the Dark Bristles are more durable.

Spoiled Brat: Bub the Bob-Omb, at first. Around Chapter 6 he gets more shades of Spoiled Sweet, because while he has plenty of things, his desires have less to do with material objects.

Spoiler Cover: The game's boxart casually contains a picture of the X-Nauts' base on the moon, a location that you aren't supposed to know about until very late in the game.

Sunglasses at Night: The Dark Koopas (this is actually lampshaded by Goombella when she wonders why they wear sunglasses in the depths of a cave).

Surprise Creepy: In particular, the final boss is a pretty jarring development in a Mario-branded game.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Several of Mario's party members in this game are functionally identical to the ones in the first game. This is most obvious with party members that are the same species, such as Goombario and Goombella, Kooper and Koops, and Bombette and Bobbery. The Yoshi Kid is a combination of Parakarry and Lakilester, and Vivian is similar to Lady Bow.

Every time the Magical Map is presented to the Thousand Year Door, it provides Mario with directions to the next Crystal Star. It almost wouldn't qualify for this trope, except that it bestows the Sweet Treat ability on Mario.

Downplayed with the Yoshi hatchling, who's the Sword of Plot Advancement specific to Chapter Three — gaining him allows you to finally beat the Glitz Pit's Armored Harriers and gain entrance to the Major Leagues, where the plot thickens considerably.

Tempting Fate: Princess Peach express an interest in buying a small box that has a magic lock that will only open for a pure and noble heart. The box is the trigger to the whole story as it contains the magical map of the Crystal Stars.

Tiered by Name: The "Hyper" prefix is used for variants of enemies that charge their attacks. Some more traditionally upgraded foes get the "Elite" prefix.

Time Keeps On Ticking: At the end of the timed escape sequence from the Great Boggly Tree, the timer does not go off even during the unskippable dialogue sequence between Crump and the Puni elder. Fortunately, Crump shuts it off halfway through it, but if the player was a little slow to get back to the entrance, the precious seconds wasted during the cutscene can be fatal.

Tournament Arc: Chapter 3, where Mario must fight as "The Great Gonzales" in the Glitz Pit to obtain the Gold Star.

Trash Talk: True to WWE wrestling that chapter 3 heavily parodies, every opponent in the Glitz Pit will begin their match by taunting and insulting Mario. The Yoshi partner, and to a lesser degree Goombella, will insult them right back and even gloats when Mario inevitably thrashes them in the fight.

Treasure Map: The Magical Map, which shows where the Crystal Stars are.

Tree Trunk Tour: The bunk of the second Chapter takes place inside the trunk of the Great Boggly Tree.

Twinkle In The Sky: Crump gets this treatment after his robot Magnus von Grapple 2 explodes. Also, Mario, of all people, suffers from this predicament after being launched to the Moon from the gigantic cannon in Fahr Outpost.

Unishment: The "curses" that the black chests give Mario are really just new abilities.

Underestimating Badassery: The Final Boss assumes Mario and his party "do not possess any power" and offers to spare them if they agree to serve under her. Naturally, she is proven to be wrong about Mario not having power.

The Un Reveal: Subverted. If you save a game clear file and go back to visit Frankly, he'll reveal that the treasure was... a Dried Shroom, which is apparently an amazing discovery, as it reveals that people ate mushrooms one thousand years ago.

Unreliable Expositor: According to his partners, Luigi makes him out to be better than he is when recounting his off-screen adventure. It's not entirely clear who's telling the truth.

Unwinnable by Mistake: The fighting conditions that Grubba/Jolene give in the Glitz Pit are completely randomized, and can make certain fights ridiculously hard (fighting the Koopinator without hammers, three Shady Koopas without jumping attacks, etc.); however if you get "don't let your partner attack" in the second fight with the Armored Harriers, you're completely screwed, as only the Yoshi Kid's Gulp attack can beat them.

Useless Useful Spell: Bobbery's Bomb Squad is this. While Bomb Squad has its uses like its stacking properties against certain bosses like Lord Crump and Shadow Sirens, as well as decreasing how long the 2nd phase of Shadow Queen stays out, it's largely arbitrary. As using it against normal enemy battles is null because enemies can be KO'd pretty quickly. (And it's better to use Gale Force or Area of Effect moves like Fiery Jinx, Stampede, Power Shell and Shell Slam) Plus Bomb Squad forever stays at 3 Damage each and can't be buffed under any circumstance (Power Lift, Charge, Power Punch etc) because of this any enemy with a defense hinders its use completely and in some cases enemies are immune to the attack in general make its overall use scarce and has very little utility.

Then there's Hold Fast, which is easily the worst move in the entire game. Not only is its use subjected to Enemies that suck your health (which only three kinds exist in the entire game, one of which is useless in experience by the time the entire game, 1 of which is useless in experience by the time the move is required) aside from Swampires it serves no use at all and unlike "Double Pain/Return Postage Combo" direct attackers receive less damage. Plus 95% of bosses in game have long range and can completely avoid the move's use entirely, making using it to tank moves completely useless. Not to mention aside from few enemies, many direct attackers have other moves that aren't affected by Hold Fast's effect.

Vivian's Veil attack is generally overlooked in terms of its advantages. While there's no doubt she's a helpful and very strong partner, Veil's usage is very minimal. It's very useful against enemies with Charged attacks, the problem is these are so few and the ones like Cortez can be defeated easily before his Charge attack means anything (That Blue Jewel actually makes killing him easier giving him Negative Defense) Hyper Goombas and Clefts are so easy to Superguard and it's a bad idea to use it against Marliyn because of her strengh and the fact Beldam rewards her the "fast status". So its only use is against Gloomtail and the Shadow Queen. While it does its job well at avoided those two's charge moves, what most players don't know is that's its only use. It wastes both Mario and Vivian's next turn, meaning the enemy attacks right after Veil is used, meaning the last move you avoid is Moot just to take damage again. It also completely dispels any status buffs (such as Attack, Defense, Static, Dodgy Etc) placed on Mario or Vivian, meaning if you Veil when buffed all stats go away or get a decrease in how long they stay out. Because of this Veil is vastly subpar and made for two specific instances.

The same also applies to Infatuate, while it can be fun to use on enemies such as Magikoopas or Wizzerds, as they'd grant Mario and Co buffs they normally place on themselves, the move's execution requires stiff timing and due to the RNG factor can be inconsistent in how effective it is as sometimes, enemies won't be confused at all.

Valley Girl: Subverted with Goombella, as her speech patterns reflect this trope, but she's actually a very smart college student and somewhat tomboyish.

Rawk Hawk can be infinitely refought after Chapter 3 if you fight your way back to the top of the Glitz Pit. Despite recurring comments and emails from him that he keeps training, his stats and moves stay exactly the same, making an already simple fight even easier.

Interestingly played with in regards to Doopliss. In his first stint as a chapter boss, he has 40 HP, 4 Attack, and 0 Defense. You rematch him in the final dungeon, and despite a slight attack increase that's necessary given that he mimics Mario, his only new trick is that he can mimic your partners now. The danger in the rematch comes more from the fact that you're fighting Doopliss, Marilyn, and Beldam at once.

Villainous Breakdown: In the final battle against the Shadow Queen, you drive her to one after you manage to hurt her.

Wake-Up Call Boss: If you don't equip the sound effect badge (either by not finding it or not realizing that it's supposed to be the sound of a cricket), then when you end up going against Hooktail, you'll be surprised by Hooktail's gargantuan 5 damage and her 1 defense, which means this early in the game you can basically be two-to-three shot depending on your health. This made astronomically worse by the fact that the second phase of the boss fight will be harder due to the lack of an audience, meaning you can't charge Sweet Treat for a free heal. Fought this way, she outperforms Magnus Von Grapple (the second boss) in damage, defense, and difficulty. You better get used to that Counter button. It may do no damage, but you won't take 4-5 damage every time she smacks you. Additionally, you had better get down all of the action commands, because most of your attacks will do 0 damage without it.

This also means that if you face her this way, Goombella basically cannot be used, as Hooktail will shrug all of the damage right off with that 1 defense.

We Cannot Go On Without You: Continued from the original Paper Mario, although unlike the first game, Mario's partners have their own HP and are no longer invincible. If Mario's partners bite the dust, you continue as normal. If Mario goes down, it's game over, even if your partner is healthy enough to finish off the enemy party. This also applies to Doopliss when you fight him with Mario's partners against you. If Doopliss is beaten first, you win the fight automatically.

Weaksauce Weakness: Hooktail gets nauseated from hearing crickets (frogs in the Japanese version) due to getting a stomach ache from eating one in the past. Equipping the Attack FX R badge will lower its Attack and Defense stats every time Mario attacks, making the boss fight much easier.

Wealth's in a Name: Goldbob, a richissime Bob-Omb made out of gold. Goombella's tattle indicates that he is the CEO of a very big company called Goldbobbington's and has buckets of ducats.

Wham Line: "Correct." TEC's response when Peach is forced to guess the answer "A 1000 Year Old Demon's Soul" to the question "What is the treasure behind the Thousand Year Door?". This is the first time in the game that the audience learns what awaits beyond the door, and the lack of ceremony about it only heightens the player's likely "Wait, what!?" reaction.

We never do get to see what became of Bowser and Kammy at all during Goombella's travels when she tells Mario what everyone is up to. Heck, the last time they're ever seen in the game is lying in defeat in the Palace of Shadow just before the final boss fight, and they disappear after you leave the room and aren't mentioned at all during the ending. However, this being the constant Big Bad of Mario games, he's bound to return.

Though Prince Mush says he's ready to get back into the ring following Chapter 3, nothing comes of this and he ends up vanishing from the game entirely.

What the Hell, Hero?: There are several instances when Mario can choose between two things to say, and sometimes the second choice is less than morally sound to say the least. If he chooses that option, his partner will chew him out and, in a case of seeking the next course of action, insist on taking the first option.

"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Goombella sends a letter to Mario at the end, detailing what happened to his partners and several other important characters.

Xanatos Gambit: Grodus pulls one of these by leaving the final Crystal Star with Lord Crump, so that his plan would work regardless of whether Crump lost to Mario or not.

Yakuza: Yes, really: the Pianta Syndicate. They never really do anything, though, aside from the beating up some members of a rival gang (they may be selling "protection" to the Robbo Theives on the east side) in the beginning and selling (scalping?) tickets.

Yin-Yang Clash: The Iron Clefts' bodies can withstand any attack... and their spikes can pierce anything. You defeat them by knocking them into each other.

You Shouldn't Know This Already: In Chapter 4 there's a Duplighost that stole Mario's body and asks you to figure out his name before Mario can get it back. Even if you already know, the letter "p" is removed from the keyboard you're given whenever you're asked. You have to learn the Duplighost's name by venturing into Creepy Steeple and physically retrieve the missing letter before you can spell it out.

Your Mom: Grubba basically delivers some trash talking (which he attributes to Mario) to the Armored Harriers/Iron Adonis Twins, with one of the trash talks also revealed to be a veiled Yo' Mama joke, as he mentions that outie belly buttons run in the family, causing the Iron Clefts to get very angered at Mario, as their mother has an outie.

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